Saturday, October 12, 2013

The Reason I Jump

by Naoki Higashida (translated by KA Yoshida & David Mitchell)

http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1372857699l/16169865.jpgI just finished this book today. A good short read, it was written by a 13-year old autistic kid. Very insightful into the mind of an autistic person and their struggles, conditions and aspirations. One point to note was that one will never know where the austism starts and the personality ends. What I mean is what trait is due to the individual's personality, and what is due to the condition that is autism. However, I am very much able to draw a lot of similarities between how I feel and the experiences described by the author. This is either a great testament of the author's ability to connect with the reader, or simply I am perhaps exhibiting some autistic tendencies as well. Or perhaps it is simply these emotions are commonalities for all human beings and autistic individuals are simply more sensitive and atuned to their emotions. Overall, a very good read and breaks a lot of taboos on the subject of autism.